Praire Sentinel

Tonight's study is a small oil study of praise grasses, a lone cottonwood, and a cloudy sky.  This is the initial block-in of colors.  I will redefine the foreground grasses to give this more depth and I need to add contrast to the clouds to give it some aerial perspective i.e. to make the horizon clouds recede into the background more.

My Niece Sophia

This is a pencil, white chalk, and terra-cotta pastel of my niece, Sophia long jumping.   I traditionally do Birthday cards from the family and this is what she wanted.

Chickadees

I have blocked in the basics design of these Chickadees on the berry covered branches.  I will dry brush in some feather details this weekend and add the eyes, while continuing to refine the berries and branches.

Forest thru the Trees - Part 2

I like to group my learning experiments of paintings to try different types of common themes.  This is another block-in of trees in a forest setting.  I blocked in the basic shapes after drawing and outlining the design.  I will need to add foliage and square away the foreground reflections better.  It is a decent start to another learning and practice oil sketch.

Hand drawings

These are more practice drawings of hands.  These are from the Andrew Loomis book on Heads and Hands.  I have hundreds of these drawings.  They are like practicing scales in piano or other basic skills one does on the way to mastering a skill.

The Forest thru the Trees

This is a small oil sketch I blocked in this evening.  I started it the other night with a simple drawing and outlining the drawing.  I let that dry and tonight I put the basic colors in.  Tomorrow, I will refine and define the foliage, the trunks and the foreground to add depth and shape.  Painting a forest is not the easiest and this is one of the first I have tried.  Practice, Practice, and Practice.

Celtic Designs

I experiment around with different things and tonight these are some celtic designs.  I used a compass to get the circles but I penciled in the basic designs and then went over them with black, grey, and gold markers.  These are classics from long ago and they are still interesting and unique style.